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I find there are very few movies coming out in January that
I legitimately want to see. If I wanted to, I could have easily made this a Top
Eight post without so much as a second thought. I like the round number though.

I’ve never seen the first Woman in Black, but I wanted to. I still intend to.

This sequel does look exceptionally creepy, but I don’t
really have the desire to lay down my money for the privilege of watching it.
Maybe if I’d seen the first one, I’d feel different. Still, the trailer didn’t
make me want to throw my remote at the screen so… there’s that.

9 – [REC]4
Apocalypse (Jan 2)

Director: Jaume
Balaguero

Writer: Jaume
Balaguero, Manu Diez

Actors: Manuela
Velasco, Javier Botet, Paco Manzanedo, Hector Colome

Genre: Horror

Rated: R

This is another sequel that I probably would have more
interest in if I had seen the others in the franchise. As far as I know,
though, there’s a lot of “found footage” (better known as “shaky cam”) in the
rest of the series.

I. Hate. Shaky cam. I just do.

I avoid it as much as possible and the other movies in the [REC] series just don’t seem worth the possibility
that I’d be dealing with vertigo at the end of the film.

[REC]4, however,
doesn’t seem to have much shaking. I could be wrong, but I don’t really see any
in the trailer so it does pique my curiosity a little.

First of all, look at that cast. Scott Foley (Scandal, True Blood, Grey’s Anatomy),
Patrick Wilson (Stretch, The Conjuring,
Insidious), Amy Acker (Angel, Cabin
in the Woods, Person of Interest) and Donald Faison (Scrubs, The Exes, Kick Ass 2) working off each other sounds
hilarious, even without watching the trailer first.

Once I actually watched the trailer, I just became more
interested. I enjoy the mixing of genres, which this movie clearly does.
Whenever murder and laughter is combined (except in movies where the laughter
comes from a place of insanity), there’s usually a meshing of genres.

I think Let’s Kill
Ward’s Wife is going to be hilarious. I hope it’s as good as it could be. This
is Foley’s first attempt at directing a full length feature film, so I guess we’ll
see.

I don’t think it’s going out on a limb to say that Johnny
Depp (Into the Woods, Tusk, Alice in
Wonderland) is one of the greatest actors of our time. He’s a complete chameleon
or, as my best friend likes to say, “he’s a freaking cartoon character!”

What my darling friend is saying there, is that Johnny Depp
can change who he is on screen with seemingly no effort. The way bugs bunny
might pop into his hole for a moment and come out dressed as something else.

For that reason, I find it very rewarding to watch his
movies. It’s exceptionally easy to understand his character’s motivations and to
get into any story that he’s a part of. Regardless of how good the script or
other actors are, Depp usually makes the film worth seeing. I haven’t seen all
of them, but I have yet to see one that I dislike.

In the interest of full disclosure, there’s some discrepancy
about when this move came/is coming out. I have seen a lot of information that
says it’s coming out in January 2015 and a lot of other information telling me
it came out in July 2014. I can’t find anything definitive, but I’m assuming
that it debuted at a film festival or something and is hitting theaters at the
end of January.

With that out of the way, Suburban Gothic looks amazing. Matthew Gray Gubler (Beautiful Girl, Life After Beth, RV) is phenomenal
in Criminal Minds and the banter
between him and Kat Dennings (2 Broke
Girls, Thor, ER) in the trailer is the whole reason I want to see the film.

The entire cast in this film is actually relatively amazing.
If I didn’t know the title or the premise of the movie and just heard that
Jason Statham, Milo Ventimiglia (Tell,
Heroes, Pathology) and Sofia Vergara (Modern
Family, Machete Kills, Chef) were going to be acting together, I’d buy the
ticket anyway.

That’d be hard without knowing the title wouldn’t it? Moving
on…

Wild Card seems
like it is going to be a strong action film. I would expect nothing less from
Statham.

The Wedding Ringer
looks like it’s going to be ridiculous and stupid and funny as all hell.

This seems like it’s going to be the kind of movie I want watch
after I’ve had a rough day, a couple of rejection letters and a fight with my
mom. It seems like the kind of film you can turn your brain off for and just
laugh.

Nothing wrong with that.

2 – Blackhat (Jan
16)

Director: Michael
Mann

Writer: Morgan
David Foehl, Michael Mann

Actors: Chris
Hemsworth, Viola Davis, Holt McCallany, Tang Wei

Genre: Action

Rated: R

Blackhat seems to
examine the weight of the digital world in our lives and how vulnerable we are
because of it. It’s a terrifying perspective and that makes for a great movie.

Any film that can tear open my being and frighten me at the
heart, is one I want to watch.

I will be vastly disappointed if this movie doesn’t meet my
expectations.

I have been waiting for this movie. I donated money to this
movie on Indiegogo.

SLC Punk! is one
of my all time favorite films. I can recite it from memory. I fell in love with
Matthew Lillard (The Bridge, Return to
Nim’s Island, Fat Kid Rules the World) as Stevo and Michael A. Goorjian (My Eleventh, Around June, Party of Five)
as Heroin Bob.

When the first movie came out I was 16 and just starting to
learn about what punk was. I met my “punk dealer,” my Heroin Bob (if you will),
in an alternative school that I started in after I’d gotten kicked out of
several other more mainstream high schools.

I might have been a touch rebellious back then.

Anyway, my Heroin Bob was named Frank and he introduced me
to my very first punk band, Bad Religion. From there it was a slippery slope.
It led to bands like NoFX, Black Flag, The Casualties, The Descendants and,
obviously, The Ramones and Sex Pistols. From the music of the scene it led to
appreciation of the ideals, to put it nicely.

SLC Punk! spoke to
me back then. It still speaks to me.

So when I heard that writer/director James Merendino (Death Club, Trespassing, Magicians) was
making a sequel I jumped on it.

I’m disappointed that Lillard was unavailable and that Jason
Segel (How I Met Your Mother, Sex Tape,
Bad Teacher) decided not to reprise his role as Mike, but there are plenty
of actors from the first movie that will be appearing.

I can’t wait to see how Sean, played by Devon Sawa (Nikita, The Philly Kid, Final Destination),
has changed or what John the Mod, played by James Duval (Donnie Darko, Hackers, Hercules Reborn), will be like. Will Eddie,
played by Adam Pascal (Rent, School of
Rock, Goyband), still be a “ladies man?” Of course, there’s Goorjian who
will be returning as Heroin Bob. And there are rumors that we’ll even get to
see Til Schweiger (Tatort, Muppets Most
Wanted, Charlie Countryman) returning as Mark, though I haven’t been able
to confirm them.

I could talk about these two movies for days, so I’ll just
end this here and say, “I can’t fucking wait.”

A group of teens ready to graduate from college take a
vacation to a friend’s second home to celebrate. All they’re interested in for
the weekend is sex and alcohol. While they’re having fun, there’s someone out
there looking to test them in ways they can’t imagine.

Have you ever seen that commercial?

Congratulations, you’ve just watched the first 45 minutes of
Kill Theory in less than a minute. At
least, that’s what it felt like to me. I couldn’t stop thinking about that
commercial for the majority of the film.

For the rest of the movie, I was just kind of looking
forward to it ending.

I want to be clear. The actors were amazing in their parts.
Daniel Franzese (Mean Girls, I Spit On
Your Grave, War of the Worlds), Theo Rossi (Sons of Anarchy, Cloverfield, Meth Head), Ryanne Duzich (Friday Night Lights), Teddy Dunn (Veronica Mars, Jumper, The Manchurian
Candidate) and Patrick Flueger (Chicago
P.D., Footloose, The 4400) threw themselves head first into their
characters. Unfortunately, someone should have checked just how deep their
characters ran before they jumped. You risk concussions when you jump into
bodies that shallow.

Ok, yeah, that was a pretentious paragraph. You know what?
There was more depth in that paragraph than in all the characters combined. The
actors can be as amazing as they want; sometimes the writing just brings everything
down anyway.

The only things that kept this movie from being completely
unwatchable were those members of the cast who were exceptional with what they
were given.